If you’re a parent to furry babies, you know just how affectionate and loyal they can be. That’s why they’re called man’s best friend.
But did you know that besides keeping you wrapped around their little finger— err, paw—your dog also has another “superpower”? It’s true: dogs have a very keen sense of smell. It’s enough for them to have an idea when you, their human, might be pregnant, way before anyone else finds out!
“We have 5 million receptors in our noses, dogs have 200 million,” says Jeff Werber, Ph.D., president and chief veterinarian of the Century Veterinary Group in Los Angeles.
“Dogs can detect when a seizure is coming on, when a person is hypoglycemic, and they can detect cancer and fear, so there’s certainly scents they can pick up on.”
And as to whether they are aware that you are pregnant, Werber says that dogs might not know exactly that you are, but they will notice the changes in you, such as the following:
How your dog knows you are pregnant
They may sense if your period is late.
If you’ve had your dog for a long time, he’ll already be aware of your routine, including the time when your monthly period arrives—and when it doesn’t. American actress Tia Mowry tells of an instance when she did a photo shoot before she found out she was pregnant.
“Fun little fact, the photographer had a dog that kept catering to me which made her question if I was pregnant, but we had our little secret,” she captioned a photo from the shoot.
They can “smell” the hormonal changes.
A woman’s hormones fluctuate when she’s pregnant, and to someone with a keen sense of smell, this may be obvious in the smell of the human’s skin or her breath.
They can detect your stress.
Pregnancy is usually a highly stressful period for a woman, what with all the changes happening in and around her. Dogs can pick up how a person feels, the one related to being a mother included.
They notice when you act differently.
Pregnancy causes a lot of changes in a woman in every aspect of her life, which may alter her behavior. Dogs notice this, and sometimes it may cause him to crave your attention than usual.
They might actually hear the baby inside your womb.
There’s no study that backs this, but since canines can detect sound waves between 50,000 and 65,000 cycles per second, there’s a very good chance they do.
